In Genesis 1, after God created man, male and female, He said His creation was good. The rest of the Bible, the word of God, could be accurately summed up by saying that mankind is not good. The massive and total shift in our relationship status is referred to as “the fall.”

After Adam and Eve sinned they were ejected from the garden of Eden. Apparently, if they had not sinned then God would obviously not have judged their sin (there would have been none), and all subsequent generations would have been born “good” like Adam and Eve were when God spoke them into being. Instead, through Adam’s and Eve’s disobedience, the “problem of evil” came to be. That first sin was the catalyst for every evil and every calamity since.

Naturally, God did not plan for the fall to happen from the beginning, right? Obviously, Adam and Eve disobeyed and caused God to change from His plan of eternal Eden which resulted in this fallen and broken world, problem of evil and all- right? Typically, the free will of Satan and the free will of Adam and Eve have been blamed for the fall. Satan attempted to “set his throne above God’s” and was cast out of heaven. He then entered the Garden of Eden and tempted Eve, who ate the forbidden fruit and gave it to her husband who also ate. That is where the explanation of the fall ends, right?

I think that, while Satan, Adam, and Eve freely chose to do what they did, and bear the blame for bringing evil into the world, the explanation does not end there. I think that the fall was part of God’s predestined plan from before the foundation of the world- yet in such a way that He did not sin.

Why would I think such a thing, and why would God predestine the event that brought every evil in the history of mankind into the world, you ask?

Glad you asked! Tune in next time!

“Abortions are very common. In fact, more than 1 out of 3 women in the U.S. have an abortion by the time they are 45 years old.”

Tragic.  This “everybody is doing it” thing is illegal with cigarettes.  It should be with abortion, too.  The argument against peer pressure marketing with cigarettes was that it could lead to the deaths of children…

A link to your “options” if you are pregnant.

This part is rather interesting:

“But beware of so-called ”crisis pregnancy centers”. These are fake clinics run by people who are anti-abortion. They often don’t give women all their options. They have a history of scaring women into not having abortions.”

It was well-documented this past spring that the director of a Planned Parenthood here in Texas quit her job, the two major reasons being that 1) she watched an ultrasound abortion being performed and could no longer suppress the truth about what she did for a living and 2) her company was pressuring her to perform more and more abortions in order to garner more profits.  This made it clear to her that her “pro-choice” company was not in the business of helping women, rather they were merely in the business of helping women have abortions in order to line their pocket books.

Yes, crisis pregnancy centers are anti-abortion, but they have nothing to gain financially by trying to dissuade women with unplanned pregnancies away from “ending their pregnancies” by killing their unborn children.  Most, if not all, provide their services free-of-charge.  On the other hand, Planned Parenthood has much to gain financially by steering these same women with unplanned pregnancies toward abortion.

The radically anti-crisis pregnancy center page on Planned Parenthood‘s site ends with this:

“No health care provider should pressure you into a decision about your pregnancy. All real family planning clinics will give you information about all your options.
Staff at your local Planned Parenthood health center can help. They can give you information on all of your options — abortion, adoption, and parenting. And they can talk through your options with you so that you can make the decision that is best for you.”

According to Abby Johnson, former Planned Parenthood director, they should listen to their own advice.  Not only does Planned Parenthood pressure women into having abortions, they pressure their directors into pressuring women into having abortions. According to Planned Parenthood‘s definition of “real family planning clinics,” Planned Parenthood‘s clinics are not “real family planning clinics.”

If you or somebody you know has an unplanned pregnancy, get the “facts on abortion” from somebody who does not have a financial interest in your “private, personal decision.”  Oh, and if you do end up at Planned Parenthood or some other abortion provider, ask them to let you see your ultrasound.  You will pay for the ultrasound, but they will likely refuse to let you see it.  Why?  Because they are not interested in helping women make the best decision by giving them all the necessary information.  They are merely interested in helping women have abortions in order to profit financially.

Just ask Abby Johnson.

I doubt it.  But we all see it now.  How could he not see it then?

What about the slave owners in our own country, or the people who hung “WHITES ONLY” signs in their businesses.  Our ancestors thought that, on no other basis than the color of their skin, people of a certain race either deserved no better than to be their “help,” or did not deserve to eat in their restaurants or sleep in their hotels.  We condemn them now, but did they know we would see them the way we do?

We stand together and call their racism evil today, but just like Hitler before them, I doubt they saw their own evil.

You know one thing that Hitler and our racist ancestors had in common?  Armed with “scientific” arguments, they denied the humanity of their victims.  Using Darwinian theories and survival-of-the-fittest arguments, the Nazis believed that their desire for a pure race of Germans justified their abominations. Like racist, Nazi Germany, our racist ancestors used similar arguments to deny the humanity, or at least full humanity, of our darker-complected brothers and sisters.  Because the black race was considered to be less fit than the white race, one generation enslaved them and another segregated them.

But surely we’re not evil like they were… are we?

“…I have now to ask whether you can consent to part with your daughter early next spring, to see her no more in this world? Whether you can consent to see her departure to a heathen land, and her subjection to the hardships and sufferings of a missionary life? Whether you can consent to her exposure to the dangers of the ocean; to the fatal influence of the southern climate of India; to every kind of want and distress; to degradation, insult, persecution, and perhaps a violent death? Can you consent to all this, for the sake of perishing immortal souls; for the sake of Zion and the glory of God? Can you consent to all this, in hope of soon meeting your daughter in the world of glory, with a crown of righteousness brightened by the acclamations of praise which shall redound to her Saviour from heathens saved, through her means, from eternal woe and despair?”

What I wrote was insensitive and offensive, and I intended for it to cause people to be outraged.  They were.

I wrote what I wrote to help people see how foolish pro-choice arguments are, and to help them see the inconsistencies in pro-choice arguments- inconsistencies that they don’t see because they have been indoctrinated by the abortion movement.

I first denied that being “pro-choice” when it comes to rape is equal to being “pro-rape.” This is obviously foolish.  Just because I said I would never rape anybody does not make what I wrote any less pro-rape.  Likewise, a person who is “pro-choice” when it comes to abortion is pro-abortion.  You cannot simply be pro-choice.  Murder is a choice.  Rape is a choice.  Theft is a choice.  We are all in favor of some choices and opposed to others.  If a person claims to be pro-choice, you must ask what choice they are referring to- and a person who claims to be pro-choice referring to abortion is pro-abortion, regardless of how they try to justify identifying as pro-choice.

Then I made the claim that rape is a private and personal decision, and that government should not be involved with our private and personal decisions.  People try to make this argument with abortion, but if we stop and think about it we see how blatantly foolish it is.  All crimes are personal decisions, and rape is a perfect example of a private decision that is wrong.  So, just because a decision is “personal” and/or “private” does not make it right, and does not mean that the government should or should not be involved in such decisions.  Government should be and is involved in personal and private decisions to rape.  Such personal and private decisions are identified as crimes, and those who commit them are identified as criminals.  Killing a 1-year-old child is identified as a crime, even if his parents made a personal and private decision to kill him, and his parents are called criminals.  It should be the same when parents make a personal and private decision to kill their child in the womb.

Next, I made the ridiculous suggestion that there should be rape clinics.  Although rape clinics might in some ways be “cleaner” and “safer,” there would still be a person getting raped.  The supposed inevitability of rape and the danger of back-alley rape do not justify rape-on-demand clinics, and such clinics would certainly not be a good thing for the victims of the rapes.  So it is with abortion.  Abortion clinics in some ways make abortion “cleaner” and “safer,” but not for the babies.  The baby still bleeds and the baby still dies, meaning abortion is never clean or safe for the baby.  Those babies are alive, and unless someone kills them they will live- with the obvious exceptions of miscarriages and complications.  The supposed inevitability of abortion and the danger of back-alley abortion do not justify abortion-on-demand clinics, and such clinics are certainly not a good thing for the victims of the abortions- which includes both mothers and babies.  Women who have abortions have to wake up every day for the rest of their lives as the mothers of dead babies, in addition to being mothers who paid doctors to kill their babies.  People often tell pregnant women to “deal with it,” by which they mean “go have an abortion,” but I don’t know how they “deal with it” for the rest of their lives.  Abortion-on-demand clinics are just as evil as rape-on-demand clinics would be, and we should be repulsed by the idea of each.

I concluded by using two popular pro-abortion slogans in my pro-choice regarding rape discourse: “Against rape? Don’t do it” and “his body, his choice.”  We see the absurdity when the arguments are used to defend rape, but not when they are used to defend abortion.  Why?  Because we clearly see that the liberty of the rapist ends where justice for the victim begins, whereas we do not see that the liberty of the mother ends where justice for the baby begins.

If you felt that what I wrote about rape was insensitive and offensive, and if you were outraged by it, then you responded exactly the way you should have.  However, you should respond in the exact same way when people say the same things about abortion.  Just as my words were insensitive and offensive to victims of rape and their loved ones, these pro-choice arguments are insensitive and offensive to the victims of abortion, as well as to justice.

This nation was once divided on the issue of slavery, to our shame.  We are now divided on the issue of abortion, to our shame.  May we all be as unified against the evil of abortion as we are against the evils of slavery and rape.

After much thought and consideration, I have decided to become pro-choice; not on the issue of abortion, but on the issue of rape.

Some people would say this makes me pro-rape, but that is not the case.  I would never rape a woman.  However, if a man does want to rape he should have that right.  Rape is a private and personal decision, and the government should not intrude on our private and personal decisions.

Because rape is illegal, many rapists are forced to perform their rapes in back-alleys.  Wouldn’t it be better if we set up rape clinics where a man could pay for rape-on-demand?  Rape is going to happen anyways, so we should do our best to make sure that it happens in a clean and safe environment.  An environment where the rapist is free from harassment of anti-choicers who would force men to control their sexual urges.  Rape sometimes results in pregnancy or sexually-transmitted-disease, which could be eliminated if these rape clinics require rapists to use protection.

Conservatives who would force their morality on everybody have had their way with the issue of rape long enough.  It’s not the rapists who are the criminals, but those who rape our freedom.  Against rape? Don’t do it.

His body, his choice.

“Since 1973, legal abortion has killed more African-Americans than AIDS, cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and violent crime combined. Every week, more blacks die in American abortion clinics than were killed in the entire Vietnam War.” -Clip 6 of 15 of “Maafa 21: Black Genocide in the 21st Century”

“In 1974, a study was released on population control that had been conducted by researchers at three major universities.  By analyzing data obtained from Planned Parenthood’s own records, they determined that the number one factor in deciding whether a county in the United States provided free or low cost family planning services was not poverty, but race.  The researchers said their findings seemed to support the contention of many civil rights activists that such programs are less intended to assist the poor than they are to control the growth of the black population.” -Clip 7 of 15

“Birth control and abortion are turning out to be the great eugenic advances of our time.” -Frederick Osborn, founding member of the American Eugenics Society, 1973 (Clip 7 of 15)

“The best way to hate a nigger is to hate him before he’s born.” -Leander Perez, Louisiana State Judge, 1970 (Clip 7 of 15)

“The civil rights elite has forgotten the lives of unborn black children and has joined those who choose to kill them. Unbelievable! They have forgotten that in the past racists snatched black babies from their mothers’ arms and sold them into slavery. Today, they snatch them from their mother’s womb and throw them in the garbage.” -Ismael Hernandez, Executive Director, African and Caribbean American Center, 2003 (from Clip 9 of 15)

-“The minister’s work is also important and also he should be trained, perhaps by the Federation as to our ideals and the goal that we hope to reach. We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.” -Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, 1939 (Clip 9 of 15)

“A majority of people in Colorado voted for abortion, I think a majority of people in Michigan are for abortion, I think in both cases, well, certainly in Michigan they will vote for it because they think that what’s going to be aborted generally are the little black bastards… as I told you- we talked about it earlier- that a hell of a lot of people want to control the Negro bastards.” -President Nixon, White House Tape, April 3, 1972 (Clip 9 of 15)

“Planned Parenthood is the third largest health fund-raising agency in the United States, after the American Heart Association and American Cancer Society.” In 1970, they were 19th. “Basically what’s happened over the last 40 years or so is that Planned Parenthood has taken billions in government money while locating the vast majority of its facilities in minority neighborhoods.  And that has not only been a tremendous boost for the eugenics movement, but it has also allowed government funded family planning programs to target the black population while insulating the government from any direct connection to black genocide.” (Clip 10 of 15)

“If you’re going to curb population, it’s extremely important not to have it done by the damned Yankees, but by the UN. Because, the thing is, then it’s not considered genocide. If the United States goes to the black man or the yellow man and says slow down your reproductive rate, we’re immediately suspected of having ulterior motives to keep the white man dominant in the world. If you can send in a colorful UN force, you’ve got much better leverage.” -Alan Guttmacher, President of Planned Parenthood and former Vice-President of the American Eugenics Society, 1970 (Clip 11 of 15)

Watch the whole thing here.
The first video is clip 1 of 15.

My plan was to review things we have talked about over the last couple months with the basketball girls, find out what they remember, refresh their memory, and try to find out issues they would like to talk about over the next month or so.  But, only one of the basketball girls was there on time (the rest trickled in later).  So, I was standing in front of the baseball team for the first time without having prepared anything to say to them.  But, by God’s grace, I think I knocked it out of the park!

I started by introducing myself and telling the guys about my baseball “career”- I played in high school and went through the off-season baseball stuff my freshman year in college before deciding to focus on basketball.  If you’ve ever spoken in front of people, you can tell when they are not listening.  That was the case at this point.  We were in the “old gym” at Seneca, and judging by where the baseball guys were looking, everything in the gym was interesting- except for me.  I had my audience so engaged that the girl’s basketball coach and the baseball coach were carrying on a conversation- about 5 feet away from me, without whispering!  But, it got better.

I wanted to find out a little bit about the baseball players, so I asked how many of them professed to be Christians.  About half raised their hands.  I asked where they go to church, and pointed to a couple who had raised their hands.  A couple of them acted like they didn’t see me point to them, broke eye contact, and looked at the floor.  One said he occasionally goes to Southeast Christian Church.  I asked what he meant by occasionally, and he said about once a month.  A couple of others named other churches in town.

Then, I held up my Bible and asked what it was.  One kid said that it is the Word of God.  I said, “exactly,” and then asked what that means.  Another said that we have to obey it.  I said, “we have to obey it- or else what?”
“We go to hell,” he replied.

“We obey the Bible or we go to hell?” I asked.
When he said yes, I asked him if he has obeyed the Bible.
“No.”
Where are you going then?
“Hell.”

After he said this, he started back-tracking.  He tried to claim that he has obeyed the Bible, but I wasn’t letting him off that easily.  After all, he was the one who said if we don’t obey the Bible then we go to hell, AND he admitted that he has not obeyed the Bible.  After some discussion, I told them that if that were the end of the story, then we would all go to hell- because we have all failed to obey the Bible.  Not only have we done what the Bible tells us not to do, we also have not done what the Bible tells us to do.  At our best, we fail to love the Lord our God with all of our hearts, souls, and might (Deut. 6).

After they agreed that this is bad news and that we are in bad shape, I told them I was going to make it seem even worse before making it better.  I talked about Exodus 34:6-7, where God says that He forgives iniquity, transgression, and sin- but He will by no means clear the guilty.

We are guilty, and God will by no means clear the guilty.

I asked them how God can claim both that He forgives transgression, iniquity, and sin; and that He will by no means clear the guilty.  Silence.  I asked some questions leading them toward the right answer, and finally one of the girls said Jesus died for our sins.  ”Exactly!”

One girl said that she didn’t get it, and asked if I would put everything together.  I explained that Adam and Eve sinned, and were separated from God.  And, because of them, we are all sinners and we have also all sinned against God.  We have disobeyed His Word and we all deserve to go to hell.  But God sent His Son, Jesus, to live the perfect life that we could not live, perfectly obeying God, and then He died to pay the penalty for our sins in our place.  God does not clear our guilt, He transfers it to Christ, who paid the penalty for our sins in full on the cross. What great news, especially against the backdrop of the bad news of our situation and what we deserve!

Possibly the most encouraging part happened when FCA was over.  One of the girls asked to speak to me, and asked if all that we had talked about applied to her.  I think she understood her position before God, that she deserves judgment and hell as the penalty for her sins, and that her only hope is in Christ.

Pray for my Seneca FCA kids, that they would love God and love Christ and love the good news that we can draw near to God because Christ died for our sins in our place!

Now people don’t have to know where, when, or how to get clean water because it’s piped into our homes.  We don’t have to worry about problems caused by all of our “human waste” cause that’s piped out of our homes.  We don’t really know how to feed ourselves- unless you count earning money, buying groceries, and preparing food in a kitchen to be doing so.  Men who had to hunt or farm if they wanted to eat and feed their families probably wouldn’t call that knowing how to feed ourselves.

Men in Job’s day had to know these things.  And, in a lot of ways, livestock meant life back then.

And Job lost more livestock than we could imagine.  More importantly, he lost ten kids. I don’t imagine that Job was too attached to his livestock.  People usually only have cooky attachments to animals when they only have one.  He had a lot more than one, so losing the livestock probably really only affected him economically.  Sheep, camels, oxen, and donkeys can be replaced.

Children can’t.  After being struck by messenger after messenger after messenger with news that all of his livestock was gone- all of it- the last messenger struck most violently.  All of his children were dead.  All of them.

I haven’t lost a whole lot in my life- especially when you stack my losses up next to Job’s.  But, when things don’t go my way I pretty much act like a 3-year-old who doesn’t get his way.  Which, saying that doesn’t really work because I have two 3-year-old nephews who typically act pretty well when they don’t get their way.  Typically.  But, when things don’t go my way, I tend to act like them on those occasions when they act like every other 3-year-old in the world.  I may not outwardly throw myself on the floor, legs kicking, arms flailing, and vocal chords working really well- but I far to often do so inwardly.

When I think about Job, and the way that he responded to losing far more than I have ever even had to lose, and far more than I could imagine losing, the analysis of my problem is simple:  I don’t love God enough.

Job loved God so much, and understood so well that God is in control and that God is good, even when (maybe especially when) it doesn’t seem like it, that when he received the worst possible news, he fell to his knees and worshipped God.  He worshipped God!

I stub my toe and respond closer to the way that Job’s wife advised him to.  Job loses thousands of livestock and ten kids and worships God.

While the analysis is simple, the solution is at least less so.  How do I get from here to there?

Louisville got a bunch of snow the last couple of days- I think I heard that we got 5 inches Thursday!  Thursday afternoon a couple of my roommates and I went to “Dog Hill” at Cherokee Park.  A couple had an inner tube like the kind you pull people on behind a boat, except it is made to use like a snow sled.  They let us use it.

The second time I went down the massive “Dog Hill” on the borrowed tube, I was determined to go fast!  I had the need, the need for speed.  So I ran pretty quickly- as quickly as a tall, lanky guy can run in old tennis shoes in the snow, at least.  At the top of the hill I jumped on the tube and away I went.

As soon as I got started, the tube spun around so that I was looking back up the hill- unable to see anything in front of me.  What was in front of me was a ramp that some kids had made of packed snow.  This might not sound like much, and if you had seen it then you would say that it didn’t really look like much either.  That’s what I thought, at least.  Before I hit it with a pretty good head of steam.

As I slid down the hill without knowing what was in front of me, I wondered where that ramp was that those kids had built.  And then hit the ramp.  I don’t know how long I was in the air, but I was in the air long enough to think I might not ever come down.  In addition to being on my stomach with my feet toward the bottom of the hill, the tube was at an angle where I couldn’t see where the ground was.  I didn’t think I would ever land!

The first thing that hit the ground was the tube.  The second thing that hit the ground was my chin.  Hard!  I closed my eyes on impact, and when I opened them everything around me was lime green.  Yes, I said lime green.  The snow was lime green.  The sky was lime green.  The trees and people around me were lime green.  Everything was lime green.

I had just started going down the hill, and still had a lot of hill left, so once I shook my head a couple of times and everything was back to the color it was supposed to be I rested my head on the tube and coasted down the rest of the way.

So, is seeing lime green a symptom of a concussion?